by Baxter Clare
“Annie, it’s Franco.”
“Hey, cookie! How are ya?”
“Been a long, strange day.”
“How so?”
“Got a CI here, I’ve known him nine years. Good snitch. Good guy. You’re not gonna believe this. I still don’t believe it. I put two and two together, it made four, so then I put four and four together and got eight. Annie, this guy is Pablo Cammayo. One of my detectives is booking him even as we speak and I’m holding his confession.”
“No freakin’ way.”
“I know. It sounds impossible. I mean, what are the odds, right? But he spilled everything. Everything. He’s been running for thirty-six years, just like me. Shoulda seen it when I called him Pablo. It was like I was talking to a ghost. He denied it for a couple minutes but I told him I ran his prints and he folded like a bad hand.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“I know, neither can I. Keep thinking I must be in some very lucid dream, but so far, I haven’t been able to wake up.”
“Well, let’s extradite him before you do.”
“You gonna come get him?”
“I’ll talk to the captain, see if he’ll cut me loose.”
“All right. You’ll have a room and a hot meal waiting for you.”
“Deal. But tell me, what was the two and two you added together after all this time? You said you’ve known this guy, what, nine years?”
“Didn’t know then what I knew after talking with his brother, with Roberto. A lot of little things clicked. The scar under his eye, no history. He’s a carver—makes beautiful statues. Didn’t know that until I talked to Roberto. He was going by John-John Romeo—his father’s name was Romeo. And the Jamaican accent— remember, his mom had a trace of one? After he got out of the pen he drifted around with a Rasta for a while and figured that would be a good identity. His parents were Panamanian but the grandparents came over from Kingston. Assuming a Jamaican identity was a way to stay connected to his past.”
“What happened between now and Leavenworth?”
“He got clean in the can. He was brought in pretty beat up and went to the hospital unit. He detoxed there. Knew if he went back out he was gonna die, and knew he couldn’t go through another detox again so he walked away from the junk. There’s a switch, huh, go to jail and get clean? He got out, bummed around, took odd jobs, drifted west. Figured the farther from New York he got, the safer he’d be.”
Frank took uneasy note of the irony.
“He’s pretty much a street person. He’s got an old lady that has a regular job. He gets by peddling oranges, hawking tips, selling his carvings now and then but I know he gives a lot of ‘em away. He’s a nice guy, Annie. I’ve always liked him. I hate that it’s him. I always thought it’d be such a relief to find the man who killed my dad, but there’s no relief in this. None at all.”
“I’m sorry for that.”
“Yeah, well. You’ll give me a call? Let me know when to expect you?”
“You bet, sister. Let me go track the captain down, get the ball rolling at this end.”
“Roger that. Talk to you later.”
Frank distracted herself with forms and reports. She slid a drawer open, groping for paper clips but fingering the journal she’d stashed earlier. She drew it out, took a glance at the clock. She dialed Gail at all her numbers, to no avail. She sighed, stared at the clock again.
Five-ten. Happy hour was well underway in every watering hole around the city. Frank started to rise. Changing her mind, she sat and drew the journal close. When she was done, she called Mary.
“Hey. Figured I’d better check in.”
“Good. What’s goin’ on?”
Frank told her sponsor everything, including the part she’d admitted to Annie. “On the one hand here’s the asshole who murdered my dad, right? On the other, I’ve known this guy a long time. We’ve got a good working relationship. He’s a decent guy. Aside from the fact he killed my dad. So it’s weird locking him up. I didn’t want to do it. Thought that would be the happiest day of my life and it’s anything but.”
Frank traced the grain on her chair arm. The worn wood was smooth as glass, but warmer, softer. She thought of Gail under her hand.
“You know, it feels kinda like locking myself up. Yeah, okay, we’re different color and different gender, but me and this guy, we’re cut from the same cloth. When I was done interviewing him I asked, ‘So all this time you had no idea who I was?’ and he said, ‘How could I? You’re supposed to be in New York, just like me.’ I had to leave the room, Mary. We both ran away. We both abandoned our families. Both lost our dads. Both tried to ignore the past and ended up here. It was like we couldn’t run any farther. Like we’ve been running parallel all these years and finally crashed into each other at the end of the road. Now there’s nowhere left for either of us to run.”
Mary suggested, “Maybe that’s a good thing. You can both stop running now.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have to go jail.”
“Don’t you think he’s been in jail all this time anyways?”
“Spare me.”
“No. Think about it. You didn’t like putting a gun to your head, Frank, but it sobered you up. And you don’t like getting sober but you like the relief it brings. Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe this man will too. I’m not saying he wants to go to jail but maybe this will be the gun to his head. Maybe now he can drop the load he’s been carrying, just like you’re doing, and who are you to deny him?”
“I’m not denying him anything. He’s going.”
“And that’s the way it has to be. My point is, we never know who our angels are. Did I ever tell you about my last day?”
“Nope.”
“I was done. I’d had it. I’d left my husband, abandoned the kids. I had nothing left but my car. I was living off five-dollar blow jobs. Five bucks was just enough for the vodka it would take to get me through another day. And I was done. I didn’t want another day. I’d had all I could take. So that morning I blew the clerk at the gas station for a quart of vodka and a gallon of gas. I was gonna drink the vodka, drive up the Coast Highway and turn left over the ocean. I stumbled out to my car and a man filling up next to me said, ‘You look like you’re having a rough day’ I told him he didn’t know the fucking half of it. He said, ‘I bet I do,’ and took a card from his pocket. He gave it to me. He was an insurance salesman and I though he was hustling me, but he went on. ‘If you decide you want to stop doing what you’re doing, give me a call. Anytime. Day or night.’ I said something rude and drove off.
“But I kept the card. Thought he might be good for a twenty-dollar blow job. I drank the vodka. Drank it straight down and headed north. That’s all I remember until I came to in a phone booth. It was dark and foggy and I had no idea where I was but I was talking to this man and he was listening. I told him everything. About the blow jobs, leaving my kids, how I couldn’t control my bladder anymore—I mean everything. He stayed on the line with me for what seemed like hours, until finally these two women drove up in a warm, shiny car that didn’t smell like piss or booze. They put me in the backseat and covered me with a blanket. I woke up the next morning in a recovery house. I never saw that man or those women again. I have no idea who they were. But I do know they saved my life. That’s why when Joe called that morning and asked me to pick you up I was only too happy to do it. Because someone did it for me. So don’t beat yourself up, Frank. You could be this man’s angel.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s me. Got a seat in the tutelary god squad.”
“The tootle who?”
Frank explained what Darcy told her.
“Sounds like you’re working the second step.”
“Hey, that’s his theory, not mine.”
Well, so how’s it coming?”
“It’s coming.”
“Geez,” Mary griped. “Give me a for-instance or two.”
“Let’s see,” Frank reflect
ed. ‘“Came to believe a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.’ Well. For starters, I’d kill for a drink right now—quiet the banshees in my head—but I’m not gonna do that because I have faith that the desire will pass. That if I talk to you and go to a meeting and have dinner that feeling’s gonna change and I’ll get through another day without a drink. And I have faith that’s gonna work because you tell me it does—that if I tell the truth and go to meetings the desire will pass. And I have faith that’s true because I’ve seen it happen. In the beginning I could barely go a few minutes without thinking about a drink. Now it’s hours. I have faith that at some point in the future it’ll be days, then weeks, maybe even months or years. But that’s getting ahead of myself. Gotta take it one day at a time, right?”
“That’s the deal, kiddo. That’s how it works.”
“Yeah.” Frank nodded. “So there’s my faith.”
“Good enough,” Mary said. “And think about those tutelary gods. You never know where they are.”
“Roger that.”
“Okay, kiddo. Anything else?”
“Nope. Just thanks, as usual.”
“No, the thanks are all mine. You helped keep me sober today. One alcoholic talking to another.”
Frank grinned into the phone. “Were you in danger of going out?”
“Probably not, but only because I get to talk to you and my sponsor and go to a meeting tonight. And because I never forget that, even after twenty-five years sober, my next drunk’s only as far away as the end of my hand. You been getting to meetings since your love life picked up?”
“One a day.”
“Atta girl. Don’t drop your guard just because life suddenly gets good again. You’re an alcoholic, you’re always going to be an alcoholic, and you need to always remember that. This is a disease and you need to treat it like you would any other. Keep doing what you’re doing even when the ride’s smooth, because I can promise you there are bumps ahead, and when the ride gets rough you want to be able to reach into your toolbox and pull out the tools that’ll help you through. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Stay close, kiddo. I’d hate to lose you.”
“I’d hate to be lost. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Frank hung up.
Talking to Mary always made her feel like she had dumped a heavy pail of rotting trash. Not only dumped the trash but scoured the pail as well. Frank slid into her coat and switched the lights off. If she hurried she could get to the downtown meeting. She jogged down the stairs and stopped halfway across the parking lot. She went back inside, to the holding cells. Pablo sat in the last one.
“Irie,” she called, shook her head. “Pablo. Come here.”
He shuffled to her. Bringing her head close to the steel Frank spoke quietly. “I’m sorry it had to end this way. You’re a good man. I know you didn’t mean to kill my father. I knew it then—that look on your face when you shot him—I’ll carry that to my grave. You were strung out. Junkies, drunks … they do things they never meant to. I know it was the junkie that killed my father, not the man standing here today. So for what it’s worth, if it means anything to you, I forgive you.”
Tears spilled over red-rimmed eyes and Pablo said, “I never mean’ to hurt nobody. All dese years, dis time I hadda t’ink about it. If I coulda taked back dat one minute, jus’ d’at one second, evert’ing be differen’. You know? Evert’ing.”
“I know.”
He lifted his hands to her. She glanced around and violated the rules by putting her hand through the bars. Pablo grasped it, shedding tears. Frank checked again, grateful there were no cops.
“Hey. It’s gonna be okay, mon. It’s gonna be all right. You get to see your family again. Think how happy they’re gonna be.”
He yanked his head up. “You t’ink?”
She took the opportunity to extricate herself. “I know. You can call Roberto if you want. Tell him you’re alive.”
” ‘Im be mad. ‘Im ‘ate me now fuh sure.”
“No,” Frank assured. “He doesn’t hate you. He might be mad, but he doesn’t hate you. Your mother either.”
“My mot’er,” Pablo marveled. “Wha’ ‘er look like? ‘Er still pretty?”
“She’s old, mon, but yes, still pretty.”
“Old,” he repeated, twirling a finger around his head. “In my mind ‘er still t’irty-six!”
Frank smiled. “I’ll give the guard your brother’s number. It’ll be a short call though. Tell him you’re coming home and to call Detective Silvester. She’ll know when you’re coming back. All right?”
“I’m goin’ ‘ome?”
“You’re goin’ home, mon. I don’t know what’ll happen once you get there, but you’re goin’ home.”
” ‘Ome.” Irie tasted the word, then seemed to find it bitter. “You sure Berto won’t be mad?”
“Not a chance.” Lifting a hand to the man who’d killed her father, Frank walked away.
Outside the station, under the balmy Los Angeles dusk, a sickle moon winked over the freeway. Frank stopped to look at it. She thought about Noah, how many times they’d said good night, right here, under this same moon. She thought about her mother and father. About Mary in a midnight phone booth. About Annie’s angels and Darcy’s tutelary gods.
Ridiculous tears sprang up again. Frank blinked them back. She nodded at the blurry moon.
“Yeah, okay,” she whispered. “Maybe so.”
Slipping her key into the Honda, she realized she didn’t want that drink anymore.
About the Author
Baxter Clare is a wildlife biologist by vocation and a writer by avocation. She never intended to write mysteries but the L.A. Franco character rented a room in her imagination one morning and has been there ever since. This is her fifth L.A. Franco mystery.
In a ceremony at San Francisco City Hall she married her lifetime partner, artist Ann Marie O’Connor. They live in the rugged La Panza mountain range of California’s central coast, and Clare ventures regularly from chaparral wilderness to the urban wilds of South Central Los Angeles.
